University of Louisville men’s basketball earns its first ACC win under Pat Kelsey with a 90-76 victory at Florida State on Saturday afternoon.
“I have a lot of respect for Coach [Leonard] Hamilton and Florida State,” Kelsey said. “I played against him two times when I was at Winthrop and they beat the doors off of us. The eight years I was at Wake Forest, back in the day, I played against him for so long and he’s the longest tenured coach in the ACC. He’s an icon in coaching and he’s so respected.
“I have such respect for how hard their teams play. They disrupt so much defensively. They make you play a different way than really anyone wants to play. But I thought our guys did a good job offensively, first of all, by playing with great poise. You have to against them because they disrupt so much. To come out of a game against a team that forces turnovers as well as anybody in the country and have 18 assists and seven turnovers, it’s a testament of our guys of playing under control, playing poised and continuing to make the simple play.
“Both [Noah Waterman and Reyne Smith] are elite shooters and stepped up and made really big shots tonight. We’re very fortunate. Road wins and conference wins are very difficult, especially against a team like this, so we’re fortunate.”
Louisville led 36-34 at the half.
Louisville came out swinging in the second half and used a 13-5 run to take a 50-41 lead with 15:26 on the clock. Florida State whittled down its deficit to just three points with an 8-0 run, but the Cards quickly replied with a 3-pointer from Reyne Smith and another from Chucky Hepburn to keep the Seminoles at arm’s length.
Beginning at 8:44, Smith hit back-to-back 3’s to start an 8-0 run for the Cards, giving them a 12-point lead with seven and a half minutes remaining. The run ultimately decided the game as the Seminoles never came closer than six after the 5:52 mark. Louisville iced it with six free throws to close the contest.
Both Hepburn and Terrence Edwards Jr. logged eight assists apiece, the first time two Cardinals have had eight or more assists in the same game since March 16, 2013 against Syracuse when both Peyton Siva and Gorgei Deng had eight. The number is a career-high for Edwards Jr. as he paired it with 19 points on 6 of 13 shooting. He neared a triple-double with seven rebounds as well.
Sharp-shooting Smith made 6-of-9 beyond the arc and scored a season and game-high 27 points.
As a team, Louisville made 15 3-pointers, marking the first time since Feb. 1, 2022 that a Cardinal team has achieved that feat. It’s just the 12th instance since the 2004-05 season.
Florida State was led in scoring by Jamir Watkins who went 9 of 15 from the floor and scored 25 total points. He added three boards, three assists, one block and one steal in his 35 minutes of action.
Louisville will return home for its non-conference finale against in-state foe Eastern Kentucky on Saturday, Dec. 28 at 11 a.m. CT. The game will be broadcast on The CW.
